


Reeling through the midnight streets

by nieded



Series: Good Omens Prompt Fills [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Golgotha, Good Omens Kink Meme, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Magical Realism, Polio Epidemic, Post-Apocalypse, Scene: Church in London 1941 (Good Omens), Slow Burn, The Dowling Years (Good Omens), Vignettes Through Time, Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Timeline, Yes I realize that's redundant when it comes to Good Omens, aids epidemic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29538444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nieded/pseuds/nieded
Summary: In which the influence Aziraphale and Crowley have over the world and their environment extend to each other. This story follows Aziraphale through time as he struggles with his feelings for Crowley versus Crowley’s expectations of him. Pining, slow burn, and so so much love.Or:Was Crowley summoning him on purpose? No, Aziraphale didn’t think so, not with how delighted and surprised he seemed to be every time they ran into each other. Then Aziraphale thought about all the times the angel really needed Crowley, in Egypt during the plagues and again in France--so certain the demon would show up in the eleventh hour--and the one particular time in a church during WWII where no demon could enter. Had Aziraphale willed him there?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Good Omens Prompt Fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170071
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57
Collections: Good Omens Kink Meme





	Reeling through the midnight streets

“I’ll give you a lift wherever you want to go.” 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, the sight of his ridiculous hair and oversized sunglasses absurd and alluring in turns. He wanted to tell him he liked the paisley, wanted to smooth his fingers over the velvet, fond and full of affection. Crowley looked different and approachable with a bit of pattern on him, backlit by the neon lights of Soho. He wanted to tell him _yes_. 

Instead, when he opened his mouth, something else spilt out, his hand already on the door handle against his will. “You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he said, shoving open the door. He felt the air shift, a sharp, crackling disappointment. It shouldn’t be a surprise to Crowley anymore, this rejection, but sometimes it still surprised Aziraphale.

He shut the door with too much force, the whole Bentley shaking as he stalked off. He was angry under his skin, buzzing with frenetic energy, shoving his hand in the pockets of his jacket to fight the cold. His cravat wasn’t warm enough for the autumn weather, not like the Bentley, not like Crowley’s words, laced preemptively with hurt. 

_This has got to end_ , he thought, hopeless to stop it at all. 

\----

Crowley didn’t ask often, but Aziraphale never forgot every time the demon reached across the divide that separated them. They’d sat over crepes, their knees brushing under the cramped table, and he had this look about him, the way he drummed his fingers on his teacup, the way his eyes kept drifting to Aziraphale. Even with the sunglasses, the angel felt him staring. Any minute now, he would ask. This time, _this time_ , Aziraphale would say yes.

“Look, I really just popped over here for, er, a quick temptation, but I’m heading back to London right after this. We could go together.” He looked down at this half-eaten plate, pushing his strawberries around. “I mean, we could share transport. That’s all I mean.” 

_Yes_ , Aziraphale thought. He studied the demon’s face, the sullen moue and nervous hands. He wanted to say yes and then add, _Stop by the bookshop. See what I’ve done_. Another murky thought floated to the surface, one he had to clamp down. He’d bought a bed and everything, a bit of wishful thinking. After all, it was ineffable that whatever this was would not come to fruition, not when Crowley never expected it. 

Instead, he shook his head, voice creaking against his will. “I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t.”

Crowley nodded, already setting down his fork while waving for the bill.

“I--” Aziraphale’s voice lodged itself in his throat, stuck. A sudden bubbling surge of anger clawed its way up his throat. _Stop putting words in my mouth_ , he thought. _I want to say yes to you!_ Instead, he said, “I best be going. But Crowley, thank you for coming to me.” He tried to infuse all the love he felt into his voice, into the beat of the few words he was permitted to say. If he could not say the truth aloud, he would find other ways to tell him _I love you_. He got up from the table and left, his body propelling him away while the rest of him reeled back, begging to stay. 

\---

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Nanny,” Warlock said. He had his hand in Crowley’s as they walked the leisurely stretch around the manor. 

While they walked, Aziraphale peered at them, hiding behind the topiary while he pretended to shear the hedges. Crowley seemed so much more rigid and precise in a pencil skirt and heels, like he was somehow altogether a different person. Only sometimes in the after-hours would he let his hair down and sink into the sofa in the gardener's homestead, feet up on the coffee table and shoes abandoned at the door. The things he’d learn to expect about the demon seemed flipped on their head now that a child was in his care.

“Then I am mistaken,” Crowley said. “I always thought dogs had the personality of whatever name you gave them.”

“No, Nanny! That’s silly. That’s not what my dog book says anyway.” Aziraphale felt momentarily smug. After all, he had given young Warlock the book to encourage him to love all creatures.

“That’s how hellhounds work.” 

Warlock didn’t even blink, unphased at the mention of hellhounds, a word that had been in his vocabulary since before he could read. It had set him on a path of begging his mother and father for a dog any moment he could get, no matter what Nanny promised for his eleventh birthday. 

Much to Crowley’s chagrin, he wanted a golden retriever. “But they’re so boring!” Crowley had complained at Aziraphale one night, deep into his cup of wine. 

With all the incessant rambling and passion of a young Brother Francis, Warlock continued to explain how dogs really worked. “There are different breeds that belong to different groups, like hounds are hunting dogs--”

“Who will chase down your mortal enemies and tear them apart.”

“--and herding dogs help out on the farm and protect the flock.” He ploughed on, determined. “You don’t just get to decide how they’ll be.” 

Crowley frowned at that and took off his spring gloves, tucking them neatly in his jacket pocket. “One day, you will expect certain things, and it won’t matter whether they were true a minute ago. Reality will bend to your will.”

Warlock looked thoughtful for a moment, and Aziraphale held his breath, hidden behind the topiary. What Crowley said was true, absolutely, but Aziraphale hoped that Warlock would ask for nice things, virtuous things. “Can you make dogs do whatever you want?”

“Mmhmm. And people too, to a certain extent.” Then Crowley frowned, shifting his weight on his feet. “It’s a mental game. I could order my shoes not to hurt, but everyone says wearing heels is a pain, so it gets in my head. Now my feet hurt from wearing them all day. It’s about what you believe in.” 

Aziraphale’s face twisted as he listened. He pushed up against the hedge, ensuring with a quick thought that it wouldn’t make a sound. Pursing his lips, he leaned closer, an idea tickling the back of his mind. It almost sounded like Crowley knew about their unintended influence on each other. His breath hitched as he listened closely.

“But my nails never chip. They wouldn’t dare.” Crowley waggled his fingers at Warlock’s face. Usually, his nails were black, a shiny iridescent scale on each finger, but ever since he became Nanny Ashtoreth, they looked blood red and entirely human. He painted them once and only once. “You’ll rule all of Heaven and Hell,” he told him, crouching down in a perfect balance in his heels, “but only if you mean it.”

And there, Aziraphale shivered. He heard a throw thrum in the demon’s voice, just a suggestion of temptation. It made the angel close his eyes and breathe out. To any other demon nearby, Crowley’s words sounded like the promise of a war, a blaring horn to call the Host and a surge of slithering armies crawling from the depth of Hell. To Aziraphale, it sounded like a choice, an opportunity to buck the expected. _You are good_ , he thought, unbidden.

Nearby, Crowley stiffened for a brief moment as a feeling washed over him, as sweet as a spring morning and the smell of baby’s breath. He got these shivers every now and again like a wash of magic. He turned to look back at Warlock. “You could choose not to, dearie. You could choose to save humanity.” Then he shook himself. “But why would you when you could crush angels beneath your heel? Hmm?”

Warlock, who was used to this sort of talk over the last three years, ignored his nanny. He was already onto the next thing. 

  
  


Aziraphale retreated to the little cottage on the mansion grounds and flitted through his notebook, a plain black leather diary that kept all of his secrets from at least the 1600s. Crowley never found it because Aziraphale never expected him to. 

That was the secret, really. 

He’d cottoned on somewhere around Jerusalem. He’d been in Greece, cradling a bowl of olives as he merrily chomped away. Then with the next blink, he stood in the middle of a bustling market as a parade went by. They were waving palm leaves and chanting at the Messiah, and Aziraphale shuddered. _Oh no._ He wasn’t meant to be here. Gabriel had given him a heads up about the goings-on with Yeshua, giving him a pointed look and a warning to steer clear. Above still frowned upon his protests over the Egyptian plagues and barred him from participating in any _critical_ business.

Besides, Aziraphale didn’t want to be here anyway. He knew how the story would end. 

Just then, somebody bumped into him, and his fresh bowl of olives from Greece spilt all over the ground.

“Oi!” the offender shouted. “Watch it!” 

Aziraphale spun around to meet two very familiar eyes looking back at him with the same amount of surprise. Then Crowley--Crawly’s--face shifted, and he grinned, clapping him on the back. “‘Ello Aziraphale. I knew I would run into you.”

“You did?”

“Well, it’s a big to-do, isn’t it?” They both turned, watching the procession march down the street, listening to the cries of ‘Hallelujah!’ while people waved their palm branches. “Though, well, I’ve heard rumours about what’s in store for him. Had a bit of a go at tempting him, but he’s a stubborn kid.” He let out a low whistle, almost in admiration.

Aziraphale nodded. “I should hope so, being the son of God. I’m afraid it’s not going to end well for him, though.” He caught sight of Crowley’s crestfallen face and cursed himself. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, let alone spill intelligence from Above to a demon. He needed a distraction. “Let’s get drunk.” 

Crowley’s face brightened, and he rubbed his hands together, turning around to find the nearest stall. “Atta angel!”

Aziraphale kept a low profile for the next week in Golgotha and had a nightcap with the demon after the crucifixion. The last drink they shared at that time was much more sombre than the first one. He let Crowley sleep it off and snapped his fingers, reappearing in his small little homestead in Athens, wringing his hands in search for a scroll of blank paper. 

That was the first time he’d miraculously appeared in a location, unannounced and unwilling. He kept a record of every instance. He showed up once in Russia, sans coat, at Sputnik and again in the rioting crowds at the Berlin Wall. Every time, he somehow managed to run into Crowley, who always exclaimed, “I knew it!” 

Was Crowley summoning him on purpose? No, Aziraphale didn’t think so, not with how delighted and surprised he seemed to be every time they ran into each other. Then Aziraphale thought about all the times the angel really needed Crowley, in Egypt during the plagues and again in France--so confident the demon would show up in the eleventh hour--and the one particular time in a church during WWII where no demon could enter. Had Aziraphale willed him there?

“Funny,” Crowley had said afterwards, stretching his long legs out in front of him while resting at the bookshop. He discarded his hat beside him, wineglass tilting listlessly in his hands, and his hair still perfectly coiffed because it wouldn’t dare think otherwise. “I thought it’d hurt a lot more. I mean, Satan, it stung, but…” 

_But I needed you, so it didn’t_ , Aziraphale thought in his head, a wash of guilt running through him. How much of this was Crowley wanting to be there, to rescue him? And how much of this was Aziraphale’s wishful thinking imposed on the demon’s will? “Well, let’s not go trying that again, regardless.” 

Crowley shuddered. “Oh no. The place gave me the heebie-jeebies.” Then he smiled at Aziraphale, a little bit mocking. It still set the angel’s heart aflutter.

In the gardener’s cottage, Aziraphale pulled open a notebook and added the incident on the grounds to his list. _Said he was good_ \--he was good, he reminded himself-- _and he stopped convincing Warlock to destroy Heaven._ It was temporary. After a beat, Crowley had shaken it off and went back to his usual diatribe. Aziraphale had found over time that their influence over each other was related directly to urgency, the bigger the emergency, the bigger the miracle. 

He just wished he could fight it sometimes, overcome the words Crowley put his mouth because he expected the worst of him. Aziraphale let out a steadying breath and closed his notebook.

\----

When Aziraphale felt a specific amount of maudlin, four or five cups deep into his wine stash drinking alone, his thoughts would spiral. Just how deep did this effect go? Could other angels and demons change their environments and the people around them based on their expectations? No, there were so many times Gabriel had assumed incorrectly about the humans--their intelligence, perseverance, creativity, and soul--but nothing changed. Some things were beyond influence. Or some things were incapable of influencing. 

It seemed, really, to just be him and Crowley who had this power, and it went beyond only each other. It touched reality around them wherever they went, unintentionally shifting for good or ill to mould to their expectations. Crowley’s unplugged espresso maker produced coffee that rivalled the coffee houses in Italy, magicked beans that were as smooth as milk and almost sweet, oily and fresh, all because the demon expected nothing less than the best. He hadn’t even plugged in the damn thing. Sure, other demons could conjure such finery, but it took effort, planning, a snap of a finger and a pull of power. Meanwhile, the world just shifted around Crowley without so much of a blink.

And--guiltily--Aziraphale knew that he’d had some influence over the Dowling household. The ambassador had been established for years with a full staff to serve his family, yet just when they needed it, two job positions came available. It was all rather convenient.

“Did you do this?” he had asked, pointing at the ad in the paper.

Crowley made a face. “Not me. I thought that was you.” Then he shot Aziraphale a sharp look. “Don’t say it.” 

But his mouth was already open, the words spilling out almost out of his control. “It’s ineffable.” Then Aziraphale frowned and glared at Crowley. It wasn’t what he intended to say, but the demon had assumed he would despite also protesting, and so the words came out anyway. “Luck of the devil?”

Crowley rolled his eyes and whined. “Stop.” 

It was weird to realise the same power he wielded on the world could be used against him by the one being who mattered most. Aziraphale was helpless to stop it.

\----

The Arrangement surprised them, both shocked that Aziraphale agreed, though it took some creative finagling on the angel’s side to get around the demon’s presumptions. Crowley was right to think Aziraphale would say no. After all, he did decline at least a dozen times and meant it. 

“Absolutely not. Why are we even having this discussion? I’ve already said I won’t do it.” He bunched the skirt of his kirtle in his hands and sniffed. The mud was the only thing keeping him from crossing his arms over his chest.

Crowley scowled. The hood of his cotehardie fell over his eyes, and he hissed when he heard the sound of shutters opening and a wet splash hit the ground from a distance as someone emptied their chamber pot into the street. “One of us could go to Norway. I mean, what’s the point of any blessings or temptations? They’re going to be dead in three weeks.” 

“We don’t know that. There might be a miracle. An act of God.” 

“An act of--! Are you serious? Look around us! If there was going to be a miracle, it’s long overdue.” He waved a dizzying hand back and forth at the street behind them, overflowing with waste. In the distance, they could hear the scuffing of shovels chipping into the frozen dirt as the villagers dug another plague pit. It smelled horrendous, and they’d seen more death in the last twenty years than they’d seen in their long, long lives.

Aziraphale felt something start to give, but he was loath to admit Crowley had a point. Everything felt fruitless during the plague. He had a family to bless, some pious father and his ten children who had to survive through the winter. One of the offspring would go on to be an influential bishop and continue converting pagans to Christianity. 

Meanwhile, Crowley had a priest to tempt, which he had complained about loudly and at great length about over beer he’d stolen from _a different_ monastery. “Nobody’s leaving the abbey. Not when there’s a plague. Not when it’s winter. How am I supposed to lure a blessed monk away from holy ground?” 

Aziraphale puckered his lips and looked down into his cup. It might not actually be a bad idea, he thought. If he went to Norway, maybe he could get Crowley to cover for him in Germany later that month. 

Just as he was about to say yes, however, Crowley made a face and threw his hands up, sloshing his drink. “I don’t know why I bother. All you angels are so stuffy. Psh.” 

He meant to protest, but instead, he said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” He frowned and tried again. “I mean--I--it’s a terrible risk, isn’t it?”

“Yup. Message received.” Crowley downed the rest of his cup and threw it on the ground. 

“But I--” _I am trying to agree with you!_ he thought. Instead, he sighed and said, “You really shouldn’t litter.”

The demon jabbed a drunken finger at him. “In six hundred years, some bastard’s gonna find that cup, and it’ll be an artefact. ‘M doing humanity a favour.” 

Aziraphale was too flustered at his own inability to agree with the demon to notice Crowley seemed drunker than he had a minute before. In fact, at the moment, the angel thought he was precisely as drunk as he usually was. 

He tried to say yes again in Portugal just before Crowley boarded a ship for New Guinea and again in what would later become Canada in the dead of winter while the demon shivered, wrapped head to toe in furs. By this point, Aziraphale was desperate to accept the Arrangement as Heaven wanted to send him to the Caribbean, and he didn’t think he had the stomach for another boat ride down the Atlantic. It just so happened that he knew the perfect serpent for the job who would give anything to sleep for the three-month journey in the hull and wake up to humid, sunny skies. 

Still, he shook his head against his own will, biting his lip so hard it bled. “I’ve told you before. This is utter foolishness.” His denials were always so wordy. Why did Crowley think he sounded like some haughty dowager? “I will… _not_ … accept.”

“Oh, piss off!” Crowley said and stalked off.

“Bugger,” Aziraphale muttered. 

At this point, he had a solid idea of what was happening. Aziraphale had been known to protest against most of Crowley’s ideas. To be fair, many of them were ludicrous and unworthy of an angel’s attention. However, it didn’t stop Crowley from asking, but it did stop him from believing anything would come to fruition. Aziraphale had to think of some way to communicate with him that Crowley wouldn’t expect. 

He stopped in his tracks, a little ‘aha!’ escaping his eyes lit up. Yes! They always met in person. Crowley would never expect a letter.

Aziraphale ran back to his temporary lodgings and pulled out a sheaf of paper. He shook his frozen inkwell and blew a miracled breath of hot air against the little pot until it turned to liquid again. Then he scribbled with haste.

> To the esteemable Mr Crowley,
> 
> Burn after reading. I have given it thought, and I agree to your terms. Please, please, go to the Caribbean. I beg of you.
> 
> \-- A. Fell

He blew on the parchment until it dried and studied the note. Then, he focused on Crowley’s little homestead from whence he’d just departed and sent the letter off with a flick of his hand. The clock ticked for a long and unbearable moment until he heard a little _pop!_ accompanied by the smell of sulfur, a torn-off piece of paper manifesting on his desk. The responding letter was charred around the edges.

> Hah! 
> 
> \-- C

\----

“So, I’ve been thinking. What if it goes wrong? We have a lot in common, you know.”

Aziraphale, distracted by the ducks, shook out the breadcrumbs from his tophat. “I don’t know. We may have both started off as angels, but you are fallen.” He didn’t give it a thought as he spoke, stumbling through the conversation, distracted by one thing-- _pears!_ \--and another. It wasn’t until Crowley shoved the note in his hand that he caught up. He stared down at the words, _holy water_ , and felt the ground give out beneath him.

He looked up as Crowley nattered on about ducks, his fingers gripping the paper with such ferocity he thought his gloves might tear. “Out of the question.” 

This, this was something he never expected, a suicide note. Perhaps Crowley had found the trick to it too by writing things down on paper. Holding onto the physical representation of the demon’s destruction felt like sticking his hands on hot coals. 

“I don’t need you,” Crowley said with a sneer. 

Of course not, Aziraphale thought. Nobody needed him. “And well, the feeling is mutual,” he said. His fingers had gone cold, his legs numb. He spun on his heel and stalked off without letting Crowley get the last word in.

For the next twelve hours, he paced around the bookshop, fighting the urge to send a telegram as an apology. How easy it would be to say, _nevermind, let’s get lunch!_ That was the way of their friendship, two opposite but equal players bidden to their respective sides. Living like that, they avoided certain conversations about their loyalties. It scared Aziraphale that Crowley spoke of being loyal to something other than Hell, that he would be looking for insurance because of him and their relationship. He would have to keep his distance, but Crowley pulled like he possessed his own magnetic force. Aziraphale knew he could accidentally summon him with a thought, and then everything would be for nought. 

He reached for his quill, deciding to send the telegram anyway when he felt a little jolt surge through him. Blinking, he stared at the inkpot and paper. Why had he been about to apologise for trying to protect Crowley? No, blast this. He wouldn’t. The demon would have to find a way without him. 

The next morning he set out for tea and walked past several establishments he’d never glanced at before. Just outside of a brick and mortar building, a young man tipped his hat at him and smiled. Then he swept down and picked something off the ground. 

“Oh, hello,” Aziraphale said, a little dumbfounded when he looked at the stranger’s hand. A silver shilling rested in the palm of the man’s glove.

“I believe you dropped this.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” He gave the man a polite, nervous smile. How did he explain to someone that he never carried money on him? After all, he could miracle a pound whenever he wanted. 

Then the man leaned close and snapped his fingers behind Aziraphale’s ear and revealed a second shilling. “Or did you lose this?”

Panic flooded him, a crawling sinking feeling. “What? Well, I daresay…” He patted his pockets and looked behind himself. This man just miracled money from behind his ear. He didn’t smell like a demon or an angel. In fact, he had a rather dull human aura, a murky green like dust mixed with the sharp smell of fresh grass clippings. He stepped back and stared at him with suspicion. “What… are you?”

The man bowed and gave a little bow, spreading his arms out. He reminded Aziraphale of the jesters during Carnevale. “I,” he said with a tremendous dramatic pause, “am a magician.” 

“Oh!” Aziraphale clapped. He was swept with relief. Foolish, really, he thought to himself, to believe that a regular old human was a spy from Heaven. He shook himself out. Obviously, Crowley’s words from yesterday about everything going wrong had affected him. “I love magic. How did you do that?”

The man smiled. He had a charming, tilted grin with blond hair parted at one side so it swept over his brow. “A magician never reveals his secrets. I’m Perry.” 

Aziraphale clasped his hand with both of his own, shaking it. “Fell. Mr Fell.” 

“Care for a cup of tea?” Perry asked. He gestured behind him at the innocuous establishment and grinned. “Maybe I’ll reveal a trick or two.” 

His instinct was to decline. Aziraphale had a strict policy about befriending humans. He’d learned to keep his distance after the first millennium when they started living shorter and shorter lives. “A bit like bugs, aren’t they?” Crowley had said once, deep into his cup in Golgotha, and Aziraphale reluctantly agreed. 

Still, at the thought of the demon, he remembered their argument yesterday. It stung when Crowley said he had plenty of people to fraternise with. Every now and again, Crowley had found himself taken by a human, but like Aziraphale, he was careful and guarded about who he associated with and how long he stuck around. 

Aziraphale had no one to fraternise with, whatever that meant. He smiled back at Perry, his kind face and warm expression, ignoring the tight pang beneath his sternum. “Tea would be lovely.” 

Every day, he went back to the gentlemen’s club. He made a point to learn all the frequent visitors’ names, from Jacob to Walter to Oscar. He learned how to dance, how to speak their secret language, how to read the language of flowers as easily as the paper. And when one occasionally reached for him, a delicate hand on his knee and kiss to his cheek, he let them down gently while tamping down the guilt he felt.

His mind often wandered even amidst such boisterous, riotous men. The hall was filled with laughter the way the fancy restaurants and balls were not. Etiquette was different here. They were not beholden to the same type of rules of society. They were free, if only for a moment within the confines of their community. Aziraphale was free. 

Still, he thought of the demon.

> Dear Crowley,
> 
> I am writing to inquire about your health. If you’re wondering, I am well. As of late, I have been making new acquaintances at a rather austere, private club. 

He paused for a moment, torn between adding _without you,_ or perhaps even, _with you if you’d be amenable_. 

> I have found myself doing things of which I never thought I was capable. Dancing, for one, I believe to be most exhilarating and freeing. What a shame other angels do not dance!

His quill hesitated over the paper as he glanced over his shoulder. Per usual, he was alone in the bookshop, but he was half-tempted to cross out his disparaging of the other angels. Then he bolstered his nerves and continued writing. The letter had rapidly turned into more of a diary than something to be sent.

> Crowley, I must admit I continue to wonder over our influence over each other. Since our parting in St James Park, I feel different. I have been trying new foods and styles of dress, taken in new performances on the West End without you, surrounded myself with all sorts of fascinating humans in ways I have not dared dream of before. I know you worry about the consequences of getting caught. I know your imagination must run wild at the thought of what Heaven or Hell could do to us, but it’s just that, your fancy run amok.
> 
> I wonder, do you dance? Do you attend balls and take ladies on your arm? Do you indulge in more than just food and drink, in other pleasures of the flesh? Part of me hopes not, but another half of myself wants you to experience all of life’s offerings to the fullest, to live as the humans do without the looming consequences of our respective head offices. I know you think it not possible, but there are things I want to say to you, things you won’t let me confess. Crowley, I love--

He dropped the quill, hands shaking. What foolishness it was to put it down in words. With a snap of his fingers, the whole paper lit up in flames, curling in on itself. No, he decided. It would not do well to think on the demon. He swept the ash into the bin and left for Portland Place.

He drank. He danced. He revelled. Putting aside his orders from Heaven, his hands gripped hands and elbows, and he clung and clung and clung as though every ounce of his life depended on it. His restless feet were put to motion, stepping and twirling away from the unnamable longing beneath his vestigial sternum, the cavernous space beneath that had walked away several decades before. It was his to choose, and he chose the deep and bellowing laughter and the stroke of a kiss on his cheek. He chose to dance.

One day, Aziraphale arrived at the gentleman’s club, shaking out his umbrella, and when he looked up, he froze. Perry sat at one of the back tables nursing his whiskey, a far off distance look on his face. His blond hair had begun to turn silver, the lines of his face deeper. 

“My dear boy, whatever is the matter?”

“It’s my nephew, you remember him? Andrew?”

Aziraphale racked his memory and recalled a story Perry once shared of a bright and curious child belonging to his sister. He nodded.

“A few weeks ago, he had a bit of a sore throat and cough. Didn’t think much of it.” Perry gestured to the rainstorm outside. “A bit of chill happens to all of us, doesn’t it?” Then he paused and looked at Aziraphale from the corner of his eye. “Well, except for you.”

“Is Andrew all right?”

He let out a pained sound and gripped his tumbler with a tight fist. “One day, he lost all feeling in his limbs. The next day he couldn’t walk. Yesterday, he wouldn’t wake up.” 

Aziraphale stilled. “Oh, Perry, I’m so sorry.” 

The man downed the rest of his drink and wiped at his face. “They think it’s the same thing as what’s happening in America.”

Aziraphale had heard about a wave of illness sweeping the New England communities. It’d been so long since he was in the Americas, and now this same disease had crawled up to his doorstep while he was off busy gallivanting, off _dancing_. “Can I do anything for you? Would you like me to attend the funeral with you?”

“God, I would, but you know it wouldn’t be proper.” Perry looked up and gave him a tight smile. “You’ve been a good friend to me.”

 _But not good enough_ , he thought. A quiver of guilt snaked through his gut. That night he wrote another letter, one he penned and sent off via telegram. 

> Is this one Polio one of yours then? You should be ashamed of yourself. Where are you?

When no response returned, he threw on his hat and gloves and stomped out into the bustling street, a wave of Londoners parting as he whipped past on his journey to Mayfair. He stalked up the narrow stairs to Crowley's flat and pounded on the door, and after waiting indefinitely long moments, he waved his hand at the lock until it busted open. He slipped on the post when he walked in, his most recent telegram on top of the heaping pile while the letters and papers underneath gathered dust. 

Everything went numb inside as he took in the shuttered windows and drawn curtains. “Crowley?” he called out. His footsteps were loud in the empty corridor, leaving dusty prints behind. He pushed open the bedroom door and peered inside, taking in the heavy, velvet curtains and the cold fireplace, the burnt-out bed warmer peeking from the foot of the bed, and up and up the long sleeping body tucked under the covers. Crowley slept on as he had over the last three decades. “Oh,” Aziraphale said. “I see.” 

He saw the dust gathered on the mantle and the date of the post marked 1862. He saw the shrivelled indoor palm in the corner that he brought to life with a touch. He saw that all the little connections and moments with the boys at his gentleman’s club--a club that was diminishing day-by-day, little-by-little--the dancing and merriment were all his own choices without the influence of the demon. Aziraphale had loved and lived wildly and disregarded his orders from Heaven and the preconceived notions of his demon, and at the end of all of it, he still missed Crowley terribly and without restraint. 

Aziraphale stepped out of Portland Place for the last time in 1902. Sometimes, in the future, he would look back at these halcyon days with nostalgia and not an interminable amount of longing. Then he would look in the direction of Mayfair, and all that want swelled triple-fold. 

He missed Crowley through the renaissance of towering smokestacks and mustard gas, through the invention of horseless carriages. _You would like that_ , he thought, watching a picture film of a tottering Model T crawl over cobblestone. He loved him with every footstep down a dimly lit church aisle with the heavy weight of prophecy in his hands. He loved him when the church door opened, and that old familiar hiss echoed all the way up to the buttresses. Aziraphale watched him shuffle past the pews, the hole beneath his breastbone suddenly full. If this was beyond his control, he would choose Crowley anyway. 

\----

“I won’t be forgiven. Not ever. That’s part of a demon’s job description.” Crowley said, arms spread wide underneath the gloom of the bandstand and the grey summer sky. “Unforgivable. That’s what I am.” 

_Not true!_ Aziraphale thought, lips glued shut by all of the demon’s doubt and anger. He watched him walk away. Every bit of him burned, his hundreds of all-seeing eyes flickering hot and stinging. And when Crowley was far out of sight and the sun had set, he said, “Not true. I forgive you,” and felt a ripple shiver in the atmosphere. 

\----

He started to question the definition of ineffability. Aziraphale never doubted it existed, but perhaps it went further and deeper than he imagined, a spider web that they were all caught up in from the highest peak in Heaven and the lowest crevices of Hell. 

“I hate that word,” Crowley said while Aziraphale frowned into his cup. “What the blessed fuck is ineffable about all of this?” He gestured out the hotel window to the street below where a line of religious zealots had camped out all night.

Aziraphale was in San Francisco. It was 1983, and he showed up of his own volition after reading the papers and watching the news on his tiny black and white CRT. The humans didn’t understand what was happening, but they had their awful theories. He walked with his head down as he passed a long row of protesters standing outside of a bathhouse on his return from the hospital. Half the men he saw that day would be dead by the end of the year. They were calling it GRID. Aziraphale called it a catastrophe. 

It was lonely work, sitting at bedsides handing out blessings. It wouldn’t matter in the long run, not to the great plan or the oncoming Armageddon, but it mattered to the men he touched at that moment. A loud and vocal community of humans believed the virus was a reckoning, a purging of sinners. When he stood in the hospital, he became a barrier, absorbing every negative thought and cruel shout so the people inside wouldn’t hear. Above claimed no direct hand in any of it, the disease, the cruelty. He passed Pestilence once, covered in gangrenous sores and oozing blisters. _Ineffable_ , they had said. Aziraphale went back to his hotel and threw an unopened wine bottle at the wall.

It would be nice, he thought, if he had some company. Crowley would know what to say. He would know how to distract Aziraphale from his worst thoughts. Then he put on his jacket and opened his hotel door to find the demon standing outside, perplexed and flummoxed. 

“Angel?”

“Oh.”

“It was the strangest thing,” Crowley said. He had a tumbler in one hand like he’d come straight from the bar, the glass unlike anything he kept in his flat. Hanging an inch above his high-waisted jeans, he wore a cut-off t-shirt that had fallen off one shoulder, hair zhuzhed to the heavens. “I was in New York. Looked down at my cup. Thought, wonder what the angel’s up to and ta-da! Here you are.”

Ah. So maybe Aziraphale hadn’t summoned him. Maybe Crowley had willed himself to San Francisco. He refused to linger on the phrase _the angel_ as if Aziraphale was the only angel in existence or perhaps even worse, the only one that mattered. At once speechless, Aziraphale opened his hotel door wider and gestured for him to come in. “Nightcap?” he asked. “Er, to go with your nightcap?”

“Bah! The night’s just getting started!”

That’s how they ended up sprawled across the queen-sized bed, Crowley’s boots dangling over the edge of the bed while Aziraphale drunkenly dug into his room service order while he retold the story of his run-in with Pestilence.

“I mean, what’s the definition of ineffable anyway?”

“Don’t be obtuse. It’s the ineffable plan, greater than our knowing, beyond our comprehension.”

“Pleh.” Crowley’s shirt had ridden up to reveal a long stretch of his back. It seemed endless, like maybe he had one too many vertebrae. Or perhaps Aziraphale was just drunk. “No, I mean, what’s the human’s definition, the one in the bloody Oxford dictionary?”

Aziraphale balanced his food tray on his knees, sitting cross-legged, propped listlessly against the pillows while he picked at his brie and crackers. “I don’t see why it matters.”

“‘Course it matters, doesn’t it? Holy water’s only holy cause the humans say so. Demons only have sharp teeth and claws because the humans say we do. We were all shapeless blobs once. Human definitions matter.”

He was teetering on the thought Aziraphale had been unravelling for the last few millennia. Just what was their influence on the world and each other? How far did it reach? Clearly, they had some sort of impact on each other, whether intentional or not. At least, Aziraphale never thought Crowley was silencing all of his devotions of love on purpose, not with how hurt he looked half the time. And it was true that humans influenced how demons and angels behaved too. Aziraphale had become a lot more benevolent in the last millennium instead of righteous, less smitey and more of a guardian the way he was intended to be, for which he was grateful. 

“Well, I believe the humans say it means, ‘beyond expressing or something that should not be uttered.’”

“So not beyond _knowing_ though, am I right?” Crowley continued, ignoring Aziraphale’s perplexed head-nod. “Mighty convenient that the plan can’t be spoken about, eh? So none of us lower-downs gets to know it either. Ineffable, shmeffable.” 

He was well onto being wasted and wouldn’t remember a lick of this conversation in the morning. Aziraphale had stayed up on countless occasions entertaining these wild notions over several jugs of wine, and it always ended the same with Crowley getting too drunk to remember to sober up until the next morning. By then, it was too late to recover the night, though he could still cure the hangover. Still, Crowley somehow named all the questions Aziraphale had out loud while tilting off in a drunken stupor. 

“Do you think we might have influence over the ineffable plan? Or perhaps this is all predestined?” 

“I don’t influence shit,” Crowley said.

 _Not true,_ Aziraphale thought. “What about your temptations?”

“Sure, but that’s all managed by Below, innit? I’m not making the executive decisions.” 

“You have leeway about how you perform them.”

Crowley shrugged. “Always ends with the same result, yeah?” 

“What’s the phrase?” Aziraphale asked, digging through his long and disjointed memory. “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey?” 

This earned him a defeated groan. “Please, angel. I beg of you. Don’t quote Emerson at me.” 

“Or is it… Nothing can bring you peace but yourself?”

“ _Satan_.” Crowley threw back the last of his wine, which he had poured into his pilfered tumbler. “That’s it. No more talk of ineffability. It’s all a load of rubbish anyway.” He summoned a fifth bottle of wine and filled Aziraphale’s cup to the brim.

Later, he rolled over on the mattress and looked up with bleary eyes. His feet hung off the side of the bed, one boot off, the sharp angle of his shoulder escaping from his top’s wide neck. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” he said, voice slurring. Then, before Aziraphale could stammer out an excuse, he said, “but I’m glad I’m here. Do you ever blink and-- _bam!_ \--find you’ve teleported somewhere else completely? What’s that about even?”

Aziraphale had the remote in his hand, not to watch the television but just for something to hold. He looked back at the demon. “My dear?”

“S’mtimes, I wake up in a different city, but it’s okay ‘cos you’re there. Is that ineffable, I wonder?”

Tomorrow, Crowley would wake up with a hangover and a curse in an unexpected city. He would look around the room and mutter, “Oh, bugger, again?” while Aziraphale watched from the sofa in the hotel room. He wouldn’t remember this conversation, Aziraphale was sure of that much, but he’d take it in stride with a smile, snapping his hair back to perfection. “Later, angel,” Crowley would say, all lean lines and sharp angles in counterpoint to his blase attitude. 

Tonight, Aziraphale looked at him, admiring his eyelashes and the softness his face took on when drunk, the gentle way he questioned. Sober, Crowley examined everything with a tenacious aggressiveness, looking for a fight. Like this, his curiosity was tempered with sweetness. “I hope so,” Aziraphale said, his voice quiet in the muffled hotel room. The carpet and the heavy curtains and big mattress soaked up his voice, muted all of his feelings except the one writ full of longing. “I hope, above everything else, we are ineffable.” 

\----

_I’m in for it now_ , he thought, standing at the altar of the church with a gun to his head. Sometimes, despite his best intentions and good wishes, everything tended to go belly up. There would be an insurmountable pile of paperwork and Gabriel’s mocking smile. It might take another decade to acquire a new corporation, and who knows what would happen to his bookshop during that time. 

There would be no Crowley, no demon skidding through the atrium and down the aisle. He hadn’t seen him since their fight in St James Park. All of his desire and will and wishing had been for nought, and now he stood alone with no one else on his side at the head of a church. He was stuck in God’s poorly written irony where everyone had known the jig was up but him until it was far, far too late. 

Decades later, Aziraphale would think of this memory, a time when he felt the world to be bleak and unforgiving when it ended up bright and beautiful instead. He would remember how loud the echo was as the church doors swung shut, the hissing ridiculous shuffle Crowley made down the aisle as he accomplished the impossible of walking across sacred ground.

“Unforgivable. That’s what I am,” Crowley would say as they stood under the gazebo, and he would believe it with all his might. It was a belief carved so deeply that the wounds had turned to scars. It could not be undone except by Aziraphale’s long, long record of all of his goodness. 

But Aziraphale would remember 1941, standing in the rubble of a bombed-out church watching Crowley dust off his fedora and wipe his glasses as though coming to Aziraphale’s rescue was as natural as breathing. Something had happened. Aziraphale had happened to Crowley, and now Crowley was happening to him.

They were two opposite but equal forces applying pressure and heat, shaping each other from moldable dirt to hot fiery coal, something hardened, brilliant, and resilient. They were changing each other from demon and angel to something more, impervious and unbreakable. 

\----

“Unforgivable. That’s what I am.” 

Crowley had power over Aziraphale, but the road went two ways. Years, decades, centuries taught the angel to expect goodness from his demon, and nothing would deter him, not Crowley’s steel-will and confounding self-esteem, not the lies Heaven and Hell told their soldiers. “I forgive you,” he said. 

Crowley pulled a face. “Nnng.” He snarled and threw his hands up in the air. 

It hurt to watch him go, to slide into the Bentley, the engine roaring as he disappeared into London’s traffic. But words had power, and Aziraphale hoped he had the power to change Armageddon the way Crowley defied the laws of sanctified ground. He couldn’t say the words _I love you_ , but he would think it and will it with every ounce of his being. 

\----

“Now what? I have no idea what to do now,” Crowley said with a huff. They sat on their usual bench in St James Park, across from the ducks. For once, the sky was bright and cheery because they both expected it to be, and the unintended combination of their wills made the blue sky so crisp it would shatter if it were tangible, a thing to hold, a thing to bite and sink into. 

Aziraphale spent millennia waiting for this moment, and now that it was here, he dug his claws in and refused to let go.“Would you say you have no expectations?”

Crowley shook his head. “None. Look at this. The world looks exactly the same. How does it look the same?” 

Nodding, Aziraphale hummed. He thought everything looked quite different. The post-apocalyptic landscape felt richer and warmer, defying all reason. They were free. _Free_. 

He leaned over and draped an arm along the back of the bench, feeling Crowley tense beneath his touch. “Ask me.” 

“What?” 

“Ask me the question you’ve been asking me all this time, the one you thought I couldn’t answer because of my ties to Heaven.” He took Crowley’s hand. “You can ask me now.”

Crowley stared back, face open despite the shield of his dark sunglasses. He sputtered. “I don’t know--I don’t know what you mean.” 

God, he was tired of waiting. “Then I’ll tell you,” he said, his voice clear and ringing. He was done with doubt, rid of disbelief. “I want to have a picnic. I want to go to the Ritz.” He pointed at the lake. “I want to walk along the Serpentine at your elbow through the Kensington Gardens and not worry about interfering powers, so ask me your bloody question.”

Crowley had gone purple, his face twisting in that inexplicable way that always made Aziraphale feel so fond. “Angel--” He exhaled, a long and stuttering breath. He looked around at the park, befuddled, the sudden terrain of their homestead unfamiliar and foreign “Would you… Will you--” He looked down at his hands. “Do you want to--”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. He couldn’t wait. “Yes, anything.” Then he took Crowley’s face in his hands and pressed their mouths together, revelling in the shocked and needy sound his demon made. He pulled back, eyes wide and wet and hungry. “Anything you ask me, from here until the sun explodes, _yes_.” 

They were blank slates. They could rewrite history. He meant to fill their pages full of love, and he meant to start today. Pulling Crowley close, all of Heaven and St James Park could watch. He didn’t care. They kissed and kissed and kissed.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes and references:  
> 1\. This was written for the GO Kinkmeme prompt [here](https://good-omens-kink.dreamwidth.org/4446.html?thread=3152222#cmt3152222). 
> 
> 2\. Thank you to [@ladybugcaptor](https://ladybugcaptor.tumblr.com/) for helping me brainstorm throughout this whole process. I had a lot of fun writing it because of her feedback.
> 
> 3\. Title comes from “Ribs” by Lorde.
> 
> 4\. I'm trying to stretch my writing in 2021, so I am taking prompt requests! Feel free to drop me an ask in my inbox on tumblr.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. Comments welcome and appreciated! As always, you can follow me [@nieded](https://nieded.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


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